Star Trek

I mean she's absolutely not Starfleet.

She's a civilian engineer.

You know...no uniform.

Yes, but that just means they work for free.

And if you think there's no good examples of people absolutely not part of Starfleet doing this kind of work, I point to Doctor Carol Marcus and the Genesis Project.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 30th 2024 at 7:34:38 AM

I mean, heck. Richard Daystrom himself.

Honestly it just seems pretty straight forward to say that Starfleet works pretty closely with other Federation organisations and institutions on a regular basis to the point the line between the two can be a little blurry.

Or that time when the D's computer interrupts and low-key sasses ("Thank you, I understand.") Data when he starts clarifying something he said with a synonym list the computer already knows.

I really am enjoying the new DISCO season. It's better than all of the previous ones and I mean that after only two episodes.

I'm watching it right now.

Didn't expect that deep cut to the all humanoids are related because they were created by the same dudes episode from TNG. But that's one of the advantages of jumping so far ahead.

Still watching the second half. I'm interested to see where this goes.

Ironic. When Disco started, I thought it was endemic of the attempt to darken Star Trek, but since they jumped ahead to the future, it feels like it's regained that idealism that's part and parcel of Trek.

I haven't really found much joy in Discovery but I kind of liked last season's twist on the old trope of people coming upon strange life and harming it without understanding it's life, by swapping the roles and having us be the life being destroyed by more sophisticated aliens and needing to find a way to communicate with them. As to this season, I am glad they chose to follow up on that plot thread. It seems worthy of a follow up.

"The Chase" is sadly an episode hated by a lot of scientists because it depends on intelligent design being true in-universe.

I wish they'd thrown a bone by saying, "Yeah, obviously evolution is still true but there's a lot of transportation, gene modifying, and oddities in the fossil records of many worlds that this shows tampering with."

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 4th 2024 at 7:23:51 AM

I can never remember how far into the future Discovery jumped. We're now saying Picard was Captain 800 years ago, right? Seems like a long time. I can't even remember when The Burn happened relative to the timeline.

Until the reveal, I wondered if the macguffin was going to tie into that super advanced robot race from Season 1 of Picard, since, Romulan, with a big galactically-important science discovery.

One thing that did bug me about the first episode, and they did it twice, is they had long complex debates about what the best course of action was, during action scenes with lots of shouting and movement and stuff.

Edited by WillKeaton on Apr 5th 2024 at 10:14:41 AM

I think it's 1000 years from ENTERPRISE.

100 years after the Burn, 900 years from ENT.

200 years after they banned time travel, 800 years from ENT.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 4th 2024 at 7:49:16 AM

Oh Season 5 has started? Dammit, I've got to get Paramount Plus again.

Also want to point out the brief mention of both the Tholian and Breen organizations.

Also also, hi Adam Jensen from the Dues Ex games.

And they really enjoy bringing up the lore that Romulan houses have fake front doors to trick enemies and that the family actually uses a secret back door. This is like the third or fourth time it's come up.

Edited by WillKeaton on Apr 5th 2024 at 1:10:03 PM

They jumped ahead 900 years from their just pre-TOS starting point. 23rd to 32nd Centuries. TNG being 800 years ago lines it's up, it was roughly 80 years after the TOS movies.

The plotline about an energy wave destroying all ships that used dilithium was... poorly thought-out, because the Romuleans didn't use dilithium. There wasn't enough of the material in the worlds they could access for it to be a viable technology for them, so they used artificial singularities instead.

The writers forgot about that little detail in their need to reboot the setting. (The real reason is that even if we assume the advancement of technology slows tremendously, given how far we'd advanced in two hundred years that we'd essentially be gods after eight hundred or whatever.

Welcome to 2 seasons ago?

I mean, yes, but space travel didn't cease either. All the destruction of all the Diltihium just meant every dilithium using vessel was gone.

And it wouldn't help the Romulans anyway because by that point, they're all members of the Federation and presumably using dilithium vessels now.

Remember, they eventually all migrate to Vulcan.

The series forgot the key lore about warp drive, 'Dilithium Warp Cores' are just the power source, what actually is the source of propulsion are the nacelles that create the warp field and thus make it go.

Other power sources like Artificial Singularities and even basic fusion cores give enough power for warp drive.

Its the most basic of basics.

Wait, yeah, the Burn should not have meaningfully impeded the Romulans or literally anyone who copied their engine designs because they use signularities instead of dilithium.

What the fuck, Disco?

A reminder the Romulan Empire was destroyed and they all moved to Vulcan, ergo they will use Federation designs from that point. Especially given singularity drives are inferior to dilithium ones.

Spock says how shitty the Romulan drive is in Balance of Terror and space posssums nest in them.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 7th 2024 at 5:52:43 AM

Discovery has had a long lingering problem of tackling big sci-fi concepts but having no idea how to stay consistent, introducing all these random wrinkles last minute in order to resolve the issue and then act as though everything makes sense. That can work on an episodic basis because it is short enough to hit the necessary plot beats to get to a conclusion, but changing the rules over 6 episodes makes things almost insufferable. Understanding motivations requires understanding the stakes. The big issue was dilithium was previously just the component that stabilized an anti-matter reaction, a warp core is just a power source while the nacelles generated the warp field. They invented the idea that dilithium was connected to subspace AND seemingly a power source on its own, not to mention the ultimate explanation for The Burn. Also kind of convenient that warp reactors weren't used on planets, as that would stretch any assumption that any advanced civilization would survive outside the smallest pockets.

Saw the first episode and so far pretty much the same as always. It focuses heavily on the gee wiz wow factor and does so at a breakneck pace, Burnham's adrenaline junkie behavior is reminding me of Mariner and not in a good way. The Captain of the Antelles is being impacted by the Protagonist-Centered Morality, simply because Burnham insists she is right all the time I'm rooted for him to call her out on that, and perhaps the story is leading towards that as I'm getting Captain Shaw vibes. The reveal at the end on what they are looking for has a lot of potential, though I can't help but be cynical that it's another decades-old Story Arc pick-up.

I will say, while Moll and Ra'ak are not the most compelling villains given the stakes offered, Ra'ak's make-up effects were shockingly good. Not necessarily a crazy design but his range of emotion took me back a second.

I mean, he kinda was wrong, but for a different reason than what Burnam thought.

And her primary concern was the possible danger to the people.

I also think they were both right about during the Warp Chase. They would get away if he let go, but the danger of destroying both ships was there.

It's not about the facts of the situation, it's that they are learning about the facts and screaming at each other over the right course of action in the middle of high-speed / warp-speed chase scenes. That's again the problem with Discovery's storytelling, they are trying to hide sloppy plotting with high energy. The screentime of that planet they were on took up about 25-ish minutes of the episode, about 10 minutes dedicated to a prolonged chase and FX sequence that includes a lot of exposition, technobabble and arguing over decision making. That makes the planet become a backdrop and not an involved and important location. To fix that would be restructuring the pacing so that the planet side story is more like 45 minutes and they can set-up some plot points ahead of time (Discovery and Antelles in orbit, cave system, the settlement is in a potential rockslide zone) all before the action sequence happens. With few exceptions I am infinitely more impressed with a story when they are able to sit still rather than always being in a rush.

Saw the second episode, and I see Captain Rainer was basically thrown under the bus for the situation due to politics and not strictly being in the wrong, which I can appreciate. It's kind of obvious where they wanted the story and character to go, but presentation does matter. I'm honestly just hoping that The Progenitors from TNG's "The Chase" are able to be as really weird and crazy as possible, since they theoretically should be the most advanced civilization in the setting.

Everyone saying "oh the Romuleans moved to Vulcan" are missing the point.

It was possible to build warp-capable ships that didn't use dilithium. So destroying every ship that used dilithium would only pose a temporary setback to the technologically-advanced species of the galaxy.

It's just bad writing.

... Yes, they didn't stop building starships did they? Every starship in the galaxy exploding all at once is a major setback. No matter what.

It's certainly writing that prioritises the story they wanted to tell over continuity but that's nothing new in any franchise.

Again, why are we revisting the writing of two seasons ago when there is new stuff to complain about to enjoy?

Edited by dcutter2 on Apr 8th 2024 at 9:42:12 AM

Once the writers abandon logic completely, why bother paying attention to anything else?

Because one plot point doesn't destroy the entire worth of a series? Because that plot point doesn't matter after that one season and the following seasons have more interesting stuff in it?